


drift(er)

by kuro49



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Mark I Glory Days, Pre-Relationship, mentions of mark i pilots, tales from the drift
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-25
Updated: 2015-11-25
Packaged: 2018-05-03 08:03:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5283116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuro49/pseuds/kuro49
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s got a saviour complex the size of Australia.</p>
<p>She’s got the meanest left hook his face will ever encounter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	drift(er)

**Author's Note:**

> you should probably read the first issue of tales from the drift before this but spoilers, i have kaori breaking a computer with her bare fucking hands imprinted into my head <3

The first simulation the two of them complete, in next to record time (because no one drifts quite like the Gage twins or the Kaidonovskys for that matter), Kaori sees Duc’s face in place of the Kaiju the entire fucking time.

 

“Ronin.”

She decides when they ask. And they are some fancy suits she has no eyes for.

“Captain?”

Kaori knows that the world will always look to Duc first even if it takes the two of them to pilot this Mark I. She will play to their whim given they are some fancy suits with the kind of deep pockets the Program needs. It might be hate at first sight but they are co-pilots now, and hate means a very different thing.

Duc waves a hand at the conference screen, nodding his complete agreement.

He even waits until the screen goes dark before turning to her, laughing as he asks.

“Literal much, Kaori?”

 

Their first Kwoon match that does a damn thing to prove drift compatibility ends with blood on the mats, and not all of it is Duc’s. (The one time it got as messy as this, the Hansen brothers were on the mats, and really, aren’t they one and the same as Duc Jessop.) Kaori doesn’t wipe the floors clean with him, not completely anyway. But he has it coming to him when he tries to take it easy on her.

Like being so-called saved that one time isn’t enough.

 

“Jessop.”

He finds her in the middle of a session between a punching bag that looks about ready to give in. How she grits out his name though, Duc reckon she isn’t the type to forgive and forget.

“I really prefer Duc.”

“More like douche.”

She catches the hanbō tossed to her, and really that is an invitation as good as any. He’s got a saviour complex the size of Australia, but she’s still got the meanest left hook his face will ever encounter.

 

It goes a little like this:

His bō taps her on the shoulder. She grips hers tighter, knuckles bone white, and takes the next one with more force than necessary. One-one. She wields it like a sword, slices it through the air, parallel, stopping centimetres from his throat. One- _two_.

The clack of the hanbō meeting rings out in a rhythm inside the empty Kwoon. Two-two. He swings, she counters, he matches her strike for strike. Two-three. She feels the vibrations down the length of the wood, she feels it grounding her in the center of her palms. He flexes his fingers, he comes at her. She lets him take that last point. He sees right through her. _Three_ -three.

There is no one calling out each point one takes from the other.

There is really no need.

(As the only other set of pilots that are neither related nor romantically-involved, Sevier and Pentecost tell them what they already know. There is nothing else that really compares, after this.)

 

Duc steps off, after her, after their match.

His steps are uneasy in a way that has nothing to do with him forgetting to maintain his prosthetic again. He is no masochist and this is no concussion, but if this is a fraction of what drift compatibility is, he wants _more_.

Even without the words for it, Kaori echoes those same thoughts like she is already inside his head.

 

The first time Tacit Ronin makes that drop, there is nothing but exhilaration. The revenge takes a step back and for Mark I pilots like them, that is quite the feat. (If Caitlin Lightcap has ever understood one thing from her creation, it is this: the amount of revenge that powers these war machines will keep them running for far longer than their nuclear cores will burn.)

It is also the first time she hears _Kaori_ coming from him and her mind doesn’t automatically supply _Koyamada_ in its place.

 

Jaeger pilots, the first generation of them anyway, are not known for much except for a whole lot of bad ideas with not so bad outcomes.

Kaori and Duc are hardly the worst to come out of the Jaeger Program.

 

**Author's Note:**

> ronin's kanji (浪人) can p much be understood as drifter, hence title and duc laughing.


End file.
